Been at this for longer than I thought.
Posted: May 18th, 2009 | Filed under: Sketches in Time and Space
An impending house move is stirring up old stuff; today I found the following writing from 1997 that seems to fit right in here at Complex Fields. Also this old drawing I like.
A clod of grass, surrounded by red clay dirt, focussed on, kicked at, fingered.
A game practiced on this field, played within imaginary confines. T-shirts on the ground mark the corners of the rectangle, or perhaps a bush, tree, shoe. The improvised field relies on these markers and the human ability to draw lines in the head, both on the fly and in the slow, deliberated case of an out-of-bounds call.
The actual, intended field lines, marked by the coach on the occasion of an actual game, as intended by the designer of the field.
The wedge of land this field fits in, bordered by ditches, then roads.
Not far away:
- Students sit in rows in a classroom
- Contractors ascertain where the foundation should be poured for a new house in a new subdivision. Identical houses lay about on straw-covered red clay mounds of earth, scraped and shaped by Caterpillars, Bulldozers.
- A plane flies overhead, tracks location in relation to towers, runways, mountains.
- A new Interstate highway arcs its way around a mathematically determined bend, soon to become a habitual curve for commuters, a factor in others’ perception of the lay of the land.
- A waterskier pushes against a forceful hard plane of water, cutting lines across the lake.
- A young swimmer tries to keep his backstroke going straight in the neighborhood pool, but keeps hitting floating lane markers.